


midnight rain

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Awkward Hand-Holding, Cuddling, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Middle School Crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 17:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16351022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: Kai can’t think of a reason why he’s letting himself hold Ren’s hand, other than that it seemed a good idea, something of personal comfort as the two of them are lying in a tunnel slide in the pouring rain in the middle of the night, that both of them just want to escape their pathetic lives for one night, to forget the consequences of their actions.





	midnight rain

**Author's Note:**

> middle school kairen is good and you won't change my mind

Kai ignores the soft tapping on his window at first; birds make their homes in the tree outside his aunt’s single-story house and often wake him with their chirping and tapping. Not that he’s asleep. It’s only eleven, and there’s no school tomorrow, so he has his deck spread over his desk.

He’s trying to decide if he should remove something to add Bellicosity Dragon when he hears the tap again, this time a little louder. With a scowl, he quietly scoots his chair back and goes to the window, intending to wave off the bird, but when he pulls back the curtain, he sees a face pressed up to the glass.

He silences the yell of surprise that instinctively threatens to escape and steps away from the window. 

_ Open up,  _ his guest mouths, pointing at the latch, and Kai mutters a swear that would get him a swift slap from his aunt if she’d heard it and opens the window a crack.

“Ren, what are you doing here?” he hisses.

Ren’s bright smile fades into a pout. “I just wanted to see you.”

Kai glances back toward his door and listens for the sound of approaching footsteps. Hearing none, he turns back to Ren. “How do you even know where I live?”

“Mm…” Ren puts a finger to his lips and looks up at the sky. “I followed you home last week.”

“You  _ what?” _

“Are you going to invite me in?”

_ “No!” _

“Kaaaai,” Ren whines, loudly.

Kai shushes him. “My aunt would kick me out if she caught me letting someone in.” 

“Then… come outside?” Ren suggests it as though it were the most obvious solution to a non-issue, and Kai doesn’t know how to tell him that  _ my aunt will kick me out  _ was a very literal concern. 

“Can’t you wait until tomorrow?” Kai is pleading now. 

“Uh-uh.” Ren rubs his nose with the tip of his finger. He looks away, face scrunched up. “I ran away today so when I go back I’m going to be in a lot of trouble.”

It’s only now that Kai notices the swelling along the side of Ren’s face. A mixture of fury, sadness, and disgust well up inside him. He opens the window a little wider and prays for it not to creak. “Was it worth it?”

The question seems to catch Ren off guard; he blinks a few times and tilts his head. “Oh yes,” he says with a frown, “it means I don’t get hit again until tomorrow.”

The fact that Ren could speak so casually of his father hitting him makes Kai want to throw up. “Have you--” 

“Kai, it’s a bit chilly and I’m a little uncomfortable standing alone in your aunt’s flower bed. Would you come outside with me?”

Ren’s voice is a little louder, enough to drown out Kai’s reluctant question. 

Kai weighs his own options. As long as he’s back before morning, and he’s sure he will be, his aunt wouldn’t know he was gone and the risk of him being shipped off to another relative for being “delinquent” again was low. Still, if she got up early or came in to check on him at three in the morning, a habit of hers lately… 

He pulls the window open wider.

Ren’s genuine, eager smile returns. “Get your deck!”

“My deck?”

“I’m gonna beat you tonight.”

Kai snorts but shuffles toward his desk and collects his cards, snatching his jacket from the back of his chair. He’s still thin and lanky, so climbing out the small window, while uncomfortable, isn’t impossible. Ren gives him a boost, holding him by the waist as he ducks his head out and goes to close the window, leaving it open just a crack so he can get back in. 

He keeps holding Kai’s waist even as Kai straightens up.

“What are you doing?”

“Helping.”

“Okay, well, you can let go.”

“All right.”

After a quick check in his aunt’s window to make sure she is still asleep, Kai and Ren run away for the night.

* * *

 

Ren finally collapses on the bank of the small river flowing through the town, laughing as he rolls down almost to the water before stopping himself and flopping onto his back, arms outstretched. 

“Look at the stars, Kai! Aren’t they pretty?”

Kai moves carefully down the decline and stands over Ren, looking upside-down at him with a frown. “You can hardly see the stars in the city. There’s too much light.”

“Aw, Kai! You’re smiling!”

Kai, who is doing nothing of the sort, frowns even more. “What? No I’m n-”

Ren bolts upright. Kai jumps back in surprise. “Now you’re frowning again.” He sighs. “Maybe I should look at you upside-down more often. You smile a lot more that way.”

And he promptly flops back over on the ground.

There’s no one in the world quite like Suzugamori Ren. Kai has long since realized this, from the first time they’d had a cardfight to the times spent playing with Tetsu after school. Sometimes it hurts, thinking about leaving Miwa and Ibuki behind, his first friends and the ones who introduced him to Vanguard. Then the reason why he had to move so much hits him, and it hurts worse, knowing that the two people in the world who were supposed to love and care for him had abandoned him. Had tossed him aside with less thought than any of the cheap trinkets they’d left behind on the bookcases. Had left him less wanted than those trinkets that his extended family fought over while also fighting over who had to take care of  _ the boy  _ next.

He was sure he would never really understand why his parents had left him, but at least…

...at least he had Ren.

“Kaaaaaai, are you listening?”

“No.”

Ren sticks out his tongue and reaches up to tug on Kai’s pant leg. “Come sit with me.”

“The ground is dirty.”

“Quit being a weenie.”

“Excuse m-”

Ren grabs his ankle and pulls him down, right on his butt, and right into a particularly muddy bit of ground. 

It hurts for a split second when he lands on his tailbone, but the ground is soft so there’s less pain than embarrassment and irritation. “What the  _ hell _ , Ren?”

“Look, look!” Ren scoots closer to Kai and points at the sky, where the crescent moon hangs over the city, barely visible through thick cloud cover.

He doesn’t know what about a cloudy sky could be so fascinating, nor can he see any of the stars that Ren was talking about before. “Yeah, it looks like it’s gonna r-”

It’s fitting that, at this exact moment, it starts raining.

There’s no clap of thunder and sudden downpour; it starts slow, a few drips on their faces as they lay on the ground. Ren blinks as raindrops splatter on his nose, his expression giving way to delight. 

“I love when it rains!” he says, as though cold water splashing his face was some kind of treat akin to getting the last croquette at the corner bakery. 

“I don’t,” Kai says, shrugging off his jacket. He staggers to his feet, sliding on the mud, and puts his jacket over his head. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Ren doesn’t move. 

“Out of the rain, you dolt.”

“But I like the rain.”

“I’m not getting sick because of you.”

The rain falls harder now, droplets colder and fatter. Kai reaches down and grabs Ren by the hand, heaving him halfway to his feet. But Ren is being obstinately  _ Ren, _ and refuses to stand on his own. 

At least, until Kai breaches the one subject he knows will get Ren to move.

“Your deck is going to be ruined by the water if you don’t get going.”

Ren’s mouth opens in a comical “oh!” of surprise and he scrambles to his feet. Together, they take off, sprinting away from the river.

Kai isn’t as familiar with this part of town, having only moved in with his aunt a month ago. But they’d passed a park on the way, so he focuses his energy on getting there as quickly as possible, before the sky truly opened up and drenched them. 

He reaches the park first, Ren wheezing several meters behind him, and glances around for a shelter. There’s no gazebo or picnic shelter, and most of the playground equipment is open, save for--

“In here.”

He hurries back to Ren, grabs his hand, and drags him toward the one tunnel slide on the playground, which mercifully has an opening that allows for sitting. They’re both thin enough that they fit in the opening, though they have to lay side-by-side because they’re both too tall to sit comfortably. By now, the rain is coming down in sheets; though they’re sheltered from the worst of it, some rain still splatters in and hammers the plastic casing around them. 

“How long’s it gonna rain?” Ren asks after a few minutes. His leg starts bouncing.

“I don’t know. Hopefully not all night.”

“I don’t want to go home tonight so I’d be fine if it did.”

“I have to be home before my aunt wakes up or--”

“Or she’ll kick you out?”

Kai flushes. Fortunately it’s dark enough that Ren can’t see. “I’ll get in trouble,” he says stiffly.

“Did you get kicked out of your last house too, the one by the mall?”

Chills that have nothing to do with the cold rain run up Kai’s spine. “Did you… how long have you been following me home?” 

Ren scrunches up his face. “Mm… four months? No, six.”

Kai bolts upright, slamming his head into the top of the slide. He barely feels the pain through his anger. “You-- you’ve been following me home since we  _ met _ ?”

“Yes,” Ren says simply. 

“Who gave you the  _ right-” _

Ren ignores Kai’s raised voice, which echoes in the tunnel. “Are you a foster child?” 

“It’s none of your business!”

“You must be lonely, moving around so much.” 

It’s Ren’s softened voice, more than the reality of the words hitting him, that calm Kai enough for him to lay back down; rather than the insensitive curiousness, he sounds sad. Kai doesn’t say anything because Ren is right.

“I’m lonely, too.” Ren sighs. His fingers brush the back of Kai’s hand and another jolt goes through Kai’s body. “People think I’m weird.”

“They’re not wrong,” Kai manages.

Ren chuckles a little. There’s not much humor there. “You’re nice to me. You and Tetsu are the only ones, but I feel closer to you. Like… you brought something out in me I never had before.”

“I didn’t do anything.” Kai’s voice is strangled. 

“You don’t treat me differently because I’m strange.” Ren’s fingers wrap around his, and Kai has a split second to make a decision. 

His throat closes up. He wants to pull his shaking hand away but instead, he loops his middle and index fingers around Ren’s and pulls Ren’s arm closer. 

Kai can’t think of a reason why he’s letting himself hold Ren’s hand, other than that it seemed a good idea, something of personal comfort as the two of them are lying in a tunnel slide in the pouring rain in the middle of the night, that both of them just want to escape their pathetic lives for one night, to forget the consequences of their actions. 

Kai’s heart beats faster and faster and faster as Ren moves closer, closer, closer, warm breath tickling Kai’s cheek, and he shouldn’t but he turns his head anyway and lets Ren kiss him on the side of his lips.

It’s an underwhelming action, but Kai’s stomach clenches and his chest burns and he can’t breathe. The sensation, completely alien to him, isn’t entirely unpleasant; it’s confusing and flustering, but it’s also calming, the feeling of having someone so close and feeling their warmth despite the chilly rain splashing on their feet. 

Ren presses himself closer to Kai, who can feel him shiver. With one hand, Kai fumbles for his wet jacket and places it over the two of them so they can share warmth. 

"I wanna cardfight," Ren whispers. 

"In case it's escaped your notice, it's pouring and there's no room in here."

Ren sighs. "I know."

"Maybe tomorrow."

"Yeah." Ren rests his head on Kai's shoulder. "Even though we didn't get to play... this is still nice."

Ren’s father will beat him tomorrow, and when Kai arrives at home after sunrise, his aunt will demand the lawyers shuffle him off to the next relative who can’t even look him in the face without being reminded of his parents. But they’ve found something special in that park, something neither of them really understood but didn’t want to lose. 

So in that moment, they forget about the future and focus on each other.


End file.
